POLITICS; PETER SHAPIRO: BENT ON BEING THE YOUNGEST GOVERNOR

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THE youngest man ever to serve in the State Legislature wants to become the state's youngest Governor by convincing voters that familiar, bureaucratic approaches to solving problems no longer work.

Peter Shapiro was 23 years old when he began knocking on doors in 1975 in the suburban Essex County legislative district that includes his hometown of South Orange. He was running for the Assembly in the Democratic primary against a candidate endorsed by the county Democratic organization headed by Harry Lerner.

Mr. Shapiro won both the primary and general election, and in the next two years got more bills passed and signed into law than any freshman lawmaker before him. He was re-elected to the Assembly in 1977, and also sup ported a successful reform movement that changed the Essex County form of government.

In June 1978, Mr. Shapiro was nominated for the post of County Executive, which was created under the new charter, again defeating a candidate backed by the Lerner organization. He won the job in November of that year and four years later was re-elected with 69 percent of the vote.

During his tenure as manager of the state's most populous county, Mr. Shapiro reorganized 69 agencies under 8 principal departments. He said he had learned that problems were too often recycled through a maze of agencies instead of being solved or brought under control.

In 1981, Mr. Shapiro closed two institutions that dealt with troubled or incorrigible youngsters. This was after the county's Division of Youth Services reported that placement in them often led to a ''pattern of institutionalization'' that, in turn, led to incarceration in jails and psychiatric hospitals later on.

The county contracted with 10 community-based agencies to provide the services given youngsters who were for merly placed in the county shelters.

''These agencies worked with the young people, with their families, with their friends, with their schools and churches and with the local police,'' Mr. Shapiro said. ''They created a system that relies upon the living, social framework of the family, not on the artificial, costly and stifling atmosphere of an institution.''

Mr. Shapiro announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Governor in Belleville. The site was one of the shuttered Essex County juvenile shelters, which he called ''a symbol of what used to be of an old, expensive and, most of all, unsuccessful approach to providing services to our citizens.''

He reported that, within a year of contracting with community organizations to help troubled juveniles, the number of juvenile cases coming into the county court system dropped by 70 percent and, after two years, by 90 percent.

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''Even more remarkable,'' Mr. Shapiro said. ''this new approach costs our taxpayers 40 percent less than the old approach. It saves on maintenance and heating oil and staff. It even saves on the judges who are not needed to handle an increasing caseload in Family Court.''

Mr. Shapiro, who has the backing of Raymond Durkin, the Essex County Democratic Chairman, said he hoped to convince voters that it was possible to reverse the tendency of government to concentrate power at the top. Instead, he would give more power and financial aid to communities to enable them to help themselves solve their own problems.

''The key word is 'enable,' '' he said. ''We can't do what the Reagan Administration wants to do: send the responsibility for services back to the states without also sending the resources to get the job done.''

Mr. Shapiro was born in Newark and educated in the public schools of South Orange and Millburn. In 1974, he was graduated with honors from Harvard, where he was managing editor of The Crimson. He served as an assistant to the state's Commissioner of Transportation before making his run for the Assembly in 1975.

He is married to the former Bryna Linnett, who gave birth last Tuesday to their first child, a son born prematurely.

Mr. Shapiro's campaign, with its emphasis on ''new ideas,'' is being directed by Paul Bograd, who was the New Jersey campaign manager for Senator Gary Hart of Colorado in last year's Presidential primary election.

Mr. Shapiro said that the Democratic Party must do more than point to successful programs begun by former Democratic Presidents, such as Social Security and school aid, and then tell voters that they ''owe'' Democrats their support.

''We've lived so long on the institutions of the past that the party has lost its sense of vigor,'' he said.

The bureacracy that has been growing over decades throughout all levels of government alienates both those who work in it and the people receiving the benefits, Mr. Shapiro said.

A version of this article appears in print on March 17, 1985, on Page NJ11 of the National edition with the headline: POLITICS; PETER SHAPIRO: BENT ON BEING THE YOUNGEST GOVERNOR. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe